NH lags national average for school breakfast

fosters.com

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Posted Jan. 22, 2013 at 3:15 AM

Posted Jan. 22, 2013 at 3:15 AM

CONCORD — School year 2011-2012 produced significant progress nationally in the effort to reach more low-income children with school breakfast. While progress was made, New Hampshire is still below the national average in its rate of school breakfast participation.

NH served 38.2 low-income children breakfast for every 100 that received lunch during the 2011-2012 school year, according to a new national report released recently. A moderate increase from the previous school year when 37.7 out of 100 received breakfast, this progress lays the groundwork for New Hampshire and its school districts to drive further increases in the number of children eating a nutritious breakfast each day.

The School Breakfast Scorecard, published annually by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), measures the reach of the School Breakfast Program nationally and by state. The FRAC report found that school breakfast nationally hit two milestones in participation during the 2011-2012 school year.

One measures the number of low-income students eating breakfast at school and one measures the number of schools offering breakfast. For the first time nationally, more than half of all low-income students who participated in school lunch also participated in school breakfast and more than 90 percent of schools that operate the National School Lunch Program also offered the School Breakfast Program.

Such milestones, noted the FRAC report, were largely driven by efforts at the federal, state, and local level to eliminate barriers, streamline administrative processes, and adopt new “in-classroom” breakfast strategies. Overall, more than 10.5 million children received a free or reduced-price breakfast each school day during the 2011-2012 school year, an increase of 738,869 children from the previous year.

“New Hampshire and our school districts have to do a better job of making breakfast more accessible to students. Otherwise we are missing out on the valuable impact breakfast has on educational achievement and health,” said Erika Argersinger, Policy Director of the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire.

The progress made in other states around the nation illustrates the significant change that can be achieved. Fortunately, the Children’s Alliance, along with its NH Hunger Solutions partners, has plans for making similar progress in New Hampshire.

Increasing participation in school breakfast is one of the goals included in the NH Roadmap to End Childhood Hunger - a statewide plan released last November. In the Roadmap, NH Hunger Solutions partners identified many of the same strategies that have proven successful across the country.

Low participation means missed meals for hungry children and missed dollars for New Hampshire. Increasing participation to reach 70 children with breakfast for every 100 that also eat lunch would lead to an additional 13,325 low income New Hampshire children eating breakfast each day, and to more than $3,258,883 in additional federal funding coming into the state. Nationally, reaching the 70:100 goal would lead to an additional 4.1 million low-income children being added to the breakfast program and states would have received more than $1 billion in added child nutrition funding.

“Improving participation rates in breakfast will lead to healthier and hunger-free children.” said Ellen Fineberg, Executive Director of the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire. “We’re eager to work with school districts in New Hampshire to look at ways to reach even more children with a healthy morning meal. New Hampshire can - and it must - continue to move forward.”

The full report, School Breakfast Scorecard, is available at www.frac.org.

To measure the reach of the School Breakfast Program nationally and in the states, FRAC compares the number of schools and low-income children that participate in breakfast to those that participate in the National School Lunch Program. FRAC also sets a participation goal of reaching 70 children with breakfast for every 100 receiving lunch as a way to gauge state progress and the costs of under participation in the program.